Kamal Jain, co-producer of Manikarnika: The Queen of Jhansi, has rubbished rumours of the film's budget getting slashed as a result of its lead star Kangana Ranaut's diminishing box office credibility, following the slow start of her latest film, Hansal Mehta's slice-of-life entertainer Simran.

Kangana Ranaut at the launch of Manikarnika: The Queen of Jhansi

After Simran could garner only Rs 8.42 crore over its opening weekend, rumours were rife that the budget of Kangana's next, Krish's historical Manikarnika: The Queen of Jhansi, will be reduced. Bollywood Hungama reports that the makers were skeptical of the film's ability to recover the Rs 80 crore being invested in the film.

The same report states that the makers of Manikarnika: The Queen of Jhansi, following the failure of Vishal Bhardwaj's period drama Rangoon, had placed their bets on the opening weekend of Simran. The film, which was expected to rake in at least Rs 20 crore, could not even manage its half in the opening weekend.

However, the same report states that Jain has refuted the rumours. "We have not reduced the budget at all and nor do we plan to in the future. I can’t reveal the budget but to put aside the rumours, when we started the film, it was immediately after the failure of Rangoon which was also an expensive period film. That was a bigger disaster as compared to Simran and we started shooting for Manikarnika immediately almost a month after the Rangoon disaster. So when we were aware that Kangana had a disaster like Rangoon behind her and we went ahead with Manikarnika, why should we reduce budget now?," he says, as per the same report.

He also confirms that 50 per cent of the shooting has been completed and they will start with their a new schedule in Rajasthan next week, as stated in the same report.

Manikarnika: The Queen of Jhansi also stars Ankita Lokhande, Suresh Oberoi,Atul Kulkarni, Sonu Sood and Arjan Bajwa. It is co-produced by Jain, Nishant Pitti and Zee Studios. It is slated to release on 27 April, 2018.